The Night of the Doctor
by SonicTeamCE
Summary: A prequel-type thing for the Day of the Doctor, inspired by the teaser trailer. Spoiler free (except for Ten and Rose's presence). Nothing to do with the minisode as far as I know


**AN ~ So, like the madwoman (in a box) I am, I signed up to Nanowrimo this That means lots of fanfiction/updates for you guys! Yay!**

**This is inspired by the teaser trailer for Day of the Doctor but I don't really know what it is. It's not really a prequel, it's kind of a statement. A bit like He Said She Said I guess. It's a thing. Respect the thing. Anyway, Ten and Rose are in it but other than that, no spoilers, so enjoy!**

**Update: I should clarify it has nothing to do with the promised 6:54 minisode by the same name. **

**As you were.**

The Night of the Doctor

The room – if indeed he should call it that, for it seemed to have neither walls nor ceiling – was dark, lit only by a blue-green glow of which he could not determine the source. Perhaps he himself was the source; when he walked in any direction, areas he passed over fell into shadow and new ground came into the light.

Then, quite out of nowhere, he found he had almost walked into a bee. He ducked it, then straightened, scowling at the curiosity. It was frozen mid-flight, at about chin level. Strange. He reached into his pocket for the Sonic, but it was not there. Stranger.

Hearts pumping a little faster now, the Doctor walked in the direction the bee had been flying. A fair distance away, right at the edge of the mysterious light, a decaying wooden sign edged into view. Jaw slack, the Doctor jogged towards it. It was the gateway, and through it, he could see Susan – oh, tears sprang to his eyes – Susan!

She too was frozen in place, head, neck and shoulders all bent at bizarre angles, as she tended to do while examining whatever she was holding. He could not see what it was, though, for beside her was a frowning old man in a greatcoat, with stark white hair and a small black hat, who appeared to be explaining it to her.

_That's me, _he realised as he circled around them. The junkyard – or at least a fraction of the junkyard – piled around him like a film set. Like a museum piece. He remembered it all so vividly. Especially her. _Susan. _He paused to put a hand over her hand, missing the touch of his granddaughter. It was a shallow comfort: there was no warmth to this touch. But he did glimpse what the pair of them were so enthralled by. A recorder.

Frowning, he continued on his way. The junkyard collapsed around him, giving way to smaller, somehow stranger clusters of his timeline. Barbara and Ian were there. Peri, Jamie and Tegan. Sarah-Jane; frowning, a pen in her hand, tapping the Doctor on the shoulder as he knelt half-buried in some oven-like contraption, scarf pouring out in all directions like some sort of ground-covering vegetation.

His timeline continued ahead, he imagined, but the wandering Doctor's attention was drawn off to the side, where over young Sarah's shoulder, he could see the older Sarah-Jane, in that messy attic, staring in horror up at Mr Smith's screen, which displayed a frozen sound recording. She hugged her genetically engineered son, Luke, with tears in her eyes, and the Doctor realised that this was the day the Earth had been stolen. This was his more recent past. The Doctor paused, and cast a look back over his shoulder. He could no longer see where he had come from, and even when he moved, it was shrouded in darkness.

Onwards, then. But he could not help noticing something especially curious about these scenes. Something was missing.

There was Mickey and Martha, holding each other and grinning as if they were about to have a photo taken, but there was no photographer. There was Jack, coat frozen mid-ruffle as he flung himself through the air towards…what? Then there was Donna, bursting through a simplistically-carved wooden door, into a circular room that was full of books. Paused though she was, there was definitely space for someone beside her.

Intending to use that space to continue into the room, the Doctor realised that that someone was him. Of course he couldn't see himself, he reasoned: he had been there, he couldn't project an external imprint of himself onto the event. Yet, all the previous versions of himself were there, from the grumpy, dull-dressed first incarnation to the stunningly colourful seventh, debonair eighth and leather-clad ninth, who he could see right now, before his very eyes.

This incarnation had been thrown to a cold, grey floor. He was sitting up now, but frozen in pleading with someone or something before him. Nearby, a row of Daleks were halfway through disintegrating. The Doctor waved his hand through the dust of them, and the fragments swirled in conspicuous silence before settling back in what he was fairly certain were their original places.

_I TAKE THE WORDS_

_I SCATTER THEM_

The Doctor whipped around, dropping into a defensive crouch, though he was unarmed. Even his quick mind would not have done him any good, preoccupied as it was with that voice. A grand, sourceless echo. The first words he had heard in this place, the first evidence it was something other than statues. The first time he had heard her voice in nearly three hundred years.

Rose.

Why was she missing from this construction, whatever it was? Were there any others not accounted for? 

Seized by the faintest fragment of in idea, the Doctor surged forward, through the space where Rose should have been and straight through the old wrought-iron gate with peeling white paint, in that jungle of a garden in Leadworth. He was getting used to the way things progressed here, somewhat in the manner of a dream. Was he dreaming?

He ran up the helter-skelter yard to that too-big house, and in the kitchen he found her, eating a bowl of ice-cream and conversing with a bowl of custard. This version of him was not here either. Curiouser and curiouser, but no time for that. He continued upstairs, and when he stepped into the nursery, the walls disappeared and he emerged on Calderon Beta, where the young River Song looked up at the stars alone.

One of them left now. Just one. His hearts began to gallop. He couldn't shake this feeling that something was terribly wrong. After all, if this was supposed to be his timeline, why hadn't he encountered his Secret yet?

Trying to ignore the thought, trying not to tempt fate, he scurried down the steps of the trunk of Calderon Beta's most famous tree, twirling and twirling so that his thoughts made him dizzy until all of a sudden he found himself face to perfect, awe-filled face with a Clara in a red dress, eyes on the stars. She was here, frozen, just like the others. For some reason, that struck him as strange, though he couldn't identify any reason why she should be missing.

But were all the versions of her here?

_LOOK AT THAT_

_I'M SOUFFLE GIRL AFTER ALL_

He had to find her. He sprinted downwards, skipping steps in leaps and bounds, and soon flew out the bottom doorway and straight into a yelp of alarm. He hoped it was Clara – his Clara, the original, who he hadn't finished saving yet – but as he steadied her at arms length he could not ignore the blinding blondeness. His breath caught in his throat. His stomach knotted tightly. Even before the hair fell away from her face, he knew.

"Rah- Rho-"

"Rose!" a familiar voice called. "I said no wandering off! At least until I see the Sonic or the Tardis again, I don't think we should-"

Trenchcoat, Converse stepped into the light, and his words stopped dead.

"Hello," bow-tie managed after a moment.

"Hello," pinstripes replied with equal hesitancy.

"Doctor!" A second voice; female, familiar only to one of them and yet both turned their faces to the dark-haired young woman who sprinted into the light and halted. Her eyes flicked between the two faces.

"Something tells me this is bad."


End file.
